Observant and intelligent traveller

Considering the early age at which Whaley was removed from school, he seems to have acquired no inconsiderable amount of education. He was certainly an observant and intelligent traveller, and in spite of many distractions, must have spent much of his time in noting down such descriptive details as he has preserved of his visits to Gibraltar, Constantinople, Asia Minor, Jerusalem, and other places of interest. At Rome, he tells us that he spent eight hours a day for two months “ in viewing whatever was worthy the notice of a traveller.”

The sketches he made during his wanderings, which were, however, unfortunately lost,* point to the possession of some artistic ability ; and his allusions to ancient history and mythology, his occasional quotations from the Latin poets, together with some evidence of a knowledge of Greek, all go to show that he retained something more than a mere schoolboy smattering of the classics. Where he chiefly fails as a writer is in the spelling of foreign names of places, some of which, as he gives them, are quite impossible to identify. The Memoirs were, however, compiled from notes made here and there through his travels, often, no doubt, in a hurried manner, and from casual information gathered by the way, and when after the lapse of some years he came to transcribe his disjointed memoranda, he had probably forgotten the less-known names, and may have been out of the reach of such books as would have enabled him to show more correctness in this branch of orthography.

Tombstones in Jerusalem

Not unconnected with the subject of his general attainments in the way of education, there is one feature of the Memoirs which is deserving of more than a passing notice. He gives in his pages exact copies of several inscriptions, which he took from the original slabs or tombstones in Jerusalem as they then appeared, although saying nothing as to what led him into this branch of archaeology, one seldom touched on by any but those who have devoted some serious study to matters of the kind.

It might be suggested, and with plausibility, that his reproductions of these ancient writings were intended to be used as further proofs of his having been in the Holy City, and with a view to convincing the friends who had wagered against his getting there. But the honesty of his confession of the purpose for which he obtained the certificates given to him by the Superiors of the conventual establishments at Jerusalem and Nazareth1 show that such suggestions are unnecessary.